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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29414493">After</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel/pseuds/PixelByPixel'>PixelByPixel</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Frank Realizes Things, Frank gets moody in bed, He wakes up eventually I promise, M/M, Matt sleeps for most of it, canon-atypical communication</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:42:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29414493</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelByPixel/pseuds/PixelByPixel</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt gets quiet <i>after</i>. Sometimes it's a good thing. Other times, not so much, and Frank can get in his head about it. Unsurprisingly, so can Matt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frank Castle/Matt Murdock</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>75</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Fratt Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>After</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you for <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC">titC</a> for holding my hand through the first fic after a long (for me, at least) dry spell. (This was written before yesterday's fic.) It wouldn't have happened without you.</p>
<p>This is for the last day of Fratt Week, the free day, because I couldn't shoehorn in any of the other prompts. :D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Red would get quiet after, most times. Frank didn’t fool himself. Sometimes, sure, it was because Frank had tired him out. Those times, Frank would smile.</p>
<p>Maria had always teased him about that smile. “You think you’re so good,” she would say.</p>
<p>“Never got any complaints,” he’d always reply, and she would laugh.</p>
<p>Red, of course, never noticed the smile. He’d just stretch out on his back and sigh, sounding happy.</p>
<p>Frank liked that.</p>
<p>Other times, though, the quiet felt different. Worried.</p>
<p><em>Guilty</em>.</p>
<p>Fucking church.</p>
<p>Like god, assuming he existed, had the time to worry about who Matthew Murdock was fucking. <em>There’s more important things in the world than your sex life, Red,</em> he wanted to say.</p>
<p>He never did, though.</p>
<p>He figured it might come across as an accusation, and he didn’t want that, didn’t want Red to clam up because he felt like Frank was judging him.</p>
<p>Even though, kind of, it felt a little like he was the one being judged.</p>
<p>There had been women, after all. Frank knew that. Red’s ex, the one who had come back and taken him under Midland Circle to die, only he hadn’t.</p>
<p>Maybe that nurse.</p>
<p>Hell, maybe Karen. He’d never asked, and he was pretty sure Red would never tell. There had definitely been others, though. Seemed like Red had lived like a monk for a while - the kind of monk in David’s boy’s games, the kind that kicked ass - but there had been women before. Men, too. Red had known what he was doing with Frank, which had come, so to speak, as kind of a surprise.</p>
<p>But did Red get quiet, the guilty quiet, when he’d been with a woman?</p>
<p>Frank didn’t think he wanted to know the answer to that one. Or, well, no. He knew. He didn’t want to admit it, though, and he absolutely didn’t want to talk about it. Not to Red.</p>
<p>Frank had had others, of course. Not just Maria. She’d been Catholic, too, but not as serious about it as Red. Their first time, he’d run a finger under the cross she wore at her throat and looked at her, a question in his eyes that he didn’t really know how to ask.</p>
<p>And Maria, she’d smiled at him. “It’s not premarital sex if we don’t get married, Frankie,” she’d teased, laughing at the way his eyes got big at the thought of being someone’s husband.</p>
<p>And then he’d married her after all. Go figure. But hell if he could call what he and Maria had done a sin. Especially not when it had gotten them Lisa, and then later Frankie.</p>
<p>It <em>wasn’t</em> a sin. Not what he and Maria had done, not what he and Red did. What kind of fucked up world was it if - assuming he existed - god made sex, made it feel amazing, and then made it wrong unless you did it in just the right circumstances? No. But sometimes it really seemed like Red saw it that way.</p>
<p>None of the men Frank had been with had been Catholic - or if they were, they hadn’t told him. It wasn’t a usual topic of conversation, especially since Frank wasn’t the relationship type, most of the time.</p>
<p>Was it a relationship, this thing he and Red had? Just thinking about it like that made Frank kind of twitchy. They’d fight together, Frank wishing he could up the body count, and they’d do other things together, too. That had just kind of happened, and a lot of the time it happened in a bed, because, hell, Frank wasn’t getting any younger. He didn’t want to screw up a fight with a drug dealer or whoever because he’d messed up his back doing something with Red. No, the bed was just <em>practical</em>.</p>
<p>It definitely wasn’t the silk sheets.</p>
<p>Which, and this amused Frank a little, were red. Did Nelson go with Red to buy his sheets, or did he charm some store clerk into helping him? Frank had to admit that he was kind of entertained by Nelson helping Red out like that, though he did kind of wonder if Red and Nelson had ever helped each other out in other ways. No. Better to think about something else.</p>
<p>Frank was pretty sure Red didn’t see colors, however he sensed things, and the sheer volume of <em>red</em> in his life was kind of funny. Ties, boxers, glasses…</p>
<p>And there he was, thinking way too much about Red’s sheets.</p>
<p>Damn if they didn’t feel good, though.</p>
<p>Red had drifted off to sleep while Frank had been thinking about all that silence.</p>
<p>Well. Good. Red didn’t sleep enough. The circles under his eyes had faded a little lately. The bruise on his cheek was starting to darken, though. Fucking punk had hit Red, but Red had hit him back, then turned toward Frank like he’d heard Frank flicking off his safety in the middle of all that fight.</p>
<p>Maybe he had. Maybe he’d heard the way the sight of some asshole hitting Red had made Frank’s blood boil. But Red could take care of himself, mostly. No need for Frank to come to his rescue.</p>
<p>They’d tended to their injuries after the fight and nothing had been too serious, for once. Red had let his hands linger - <em>Just to be sure, Frank,</em> he’d said, all innocence, but Frank had seen his smile. He liked putting his hands on Frank, and Frank? He didn’t mind that at all.</p>
<p>That bruise, though. Frank wanted to brush his thumb against it, but he didn’t; that’d be the fastest way to wake Red outside of someone yelling for help, and Red needed his sleep.</p>
<p>Hell, Frank needed <em>his</em> sleep, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Red getting quiet. The guilt was part of him, Frank guessed, like the Catholicism, like the martyrdom, like the overwhelming need to keep his city safe. Frank maybe didn’t love those parts of Red, but he - yeah. He loved Red. Shit. Frank leaned back a little, rocked by the weight of his realization. It wasn’t like the love he’d had - <em>still had</em> - for Maria, but nothing was wrong with that. Red was a different person than Maria, so of course Frank loved - <em>loved</em>, hell - him differently.</p>
<p>Maria would have liked Red, Frank thought. She would have bullied a few good meals into him and teased him into smiling. And he would have been good with the kids. Frank had seen Red with the orphanage kids sometimes, and -</p>
<p><em>No</em>. No sense thinking about what Red would have been like with Maria or Lisa or Frankie. If they were still here, Frank never would have met Red.</p>
<p>That thought was almost more than Frank could bear. He sucked in a deep breath, holding it until he thought his lungs would burst and then letting it out with a soft whoosh.</p>
<p>Fingers grazed Frank’s side and he twitched away from them, then turned to see Red’s eyes were open and turned in his general direction.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” Red brushed his hand along Frank’s side, then slid up his chest. “Your heart’s beating so fast it woke me up.”</p>
<p>“Sorry.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be sorry. If something’s wrong, I -” He seemed to hesitate, then added, “I’m here.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>Red made a sound, half in laughter, half in annoyance. “Well don’t say it all at once, Frank. I can’t get a word in edgewise.”</p>
<p>Frank exhaled a sound of his own, this one all annoyance. Then he shrugged; why not? Red had asked for it. And - he glanced at his phone - 2:38 am was the perfect time for this sort of conversation. “Does what we do make you feel bad?”</p>
<p>Red’s expression went incredulous. “I think I’ve given fairly concrete evidence that it does not.”</p>
<p>Frank scoffed. “Yeah, Counselor. Not the - the physical. The - after.” Why the fuck was he pussyfooting around the words? But was there another word for after?</p>
<p>After, when Red would sometimes turn on his side and not say anything, maybe pretending he was asleep.</p>
<p>Red must have figured out what Frank meant. His lips tightened, and Frank tried not to focus on them. “It’s good,” he said, but Frank shook his head.</p>
<p>“You know that’s not what I mean.” He thought about asking if he was imagining it, but he knew he wasn’t. It had happened too often.</p>
<p>“Frank, look -”</p>
<p>Frank waited as Red’s lips worked, maybe as he tried to put his thoughts together. His hair was rumpled with sleep and Frank willed himself not to brush it into place.</p>
<p>“I just - I grew up in a Catholic orphanage, you know?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Not that Frank hadn’t wondered if anything had happened in that orphanage. You get a bunch of teenage boys together, sometimes things happened.</p>
<p>“It’s not <em>you</em>,” Red added, turning his face toward Frank. His voice held enough urgency that Frank believed him. It wasn’t Frank specifically, no.</p>
<p>“Fucking church,” Frank added, though without any heat.</p>
<p>“Not really possible,” Red quipped, and Frank sighed. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s just, sometimes it feels like a sin.”</p>
<p>“Anything I can do to help?” Frank’s hindbrain suggested some helpful activities, and his body began to respond.</p>
<p>“No,” Red replied, that hint of amusement in his tone suggesting that he maybe figured out what was going on in Frank’s head and, well, elsewhere.</p>
<p>Frank thought hard about baseball statistics.</p>
<p>It didn’t help, not with Red right <em>there</em>. Fuck, he wasn’t a teenager.</p>
<p>“You know it’s not a sin, though, right?”</p>
<p>“Intellectually…” Red sighed. “I just get in my head too much sometimes.”</p>
<p>Frank hummed an affirmative, but then something occurred to him. “What if it <em>is</em> a sin?”</p>
<p>“<em>What?</em>” Red sat up, eyes wide. “Frank -”</p>
<p>“No, listen.”</p>
<p>Red was the lawyer; maybe he needed something more logical.</p>
<p>“So Jesus died, right?” Frank continued, his mind frantically searching for things he’d barely paid attention to.</p>
<p>“Well, I wasn’t there,” replied Red, and Frank couldn’t help but roll his eyes, even if Red couldn’t see. “But that’s the story, yeah.”</p>
<p>“And why did he die?”</p>
<p>“I feel like I’m back in catechism class,” Red muttered. “Sister Bernice had a gimlet eye. I couldn’t see it,” he added as Frank drew in a breath to protest. “But I could <em>feel</em> it.”</p>
<p>“It’s something they teach in nun school,” Frank agreed. “But this isn’t a tough one, Red.”</p>
<p>“Okay, yeah, He died for our sins.”</p>
<p>“So,” Frank drawled, shifting a little closer to Red, “If he died for our sins, it would be a shame if he died in vain.”</p>
<p>If Red could stare at Frank, he would. As it was, his jaw dropped a little. “You mean we <em>should</em> sin, otherwise Jesus’s death was a waste?”</p>
<p>Frank vaguely remembered Sister Mary Aloysius telling him that Jesus suffered anew on the cross every time he sinned. Hopefully Red wouldn’t think of that. “Yes?”</p>
<p>Red made an odd choking sound and started to shake a little, and Frank sat up in alarm until he realized Red was laughing. “I really don’t think it works like that,” he managed. “But thank you.”</p>
<p>Frank settled back on the bed. “You’re welcome, I guess.”</p>
<p>“No, you’re trying to make me feel better. Thanks.”</p>
<p>Frank nodded, then mumbled an affirmative just in case Red couldn’t sense it.</p>
<p>“Look, if sometimes I act a little weird after, it’s not your fault,” Red said.</p>
<p>Frank tried not to worry about this Actual Communication. After all, he’d started it.</p>
<p>“I’ve just - absorbed a lot of things, you know? Attitudes. I know what we do isn’t wrong - it’s really, really right.”</p>
<p>“Oh yeah?” Frank’s anatomy, which had deflated at all the Jesus talk, started to have a resurrection of its own.</p>
<p>Frank was glad he didn’t believe in Hell, because if it existed he was definitely going there.</p>
<p>"So I’ll work on it, and it’s definitely not you. But, well… "</p>
<p>“It might take a while?” Frank said, and Red nodded. “I’m okay with that.”</p>
<p>Red smiled and leaned in close for a kiss. Frank thought that was going to be it, seeing as how it had to be nearly three in the morning, but then Red settled against him, one hand sliding lower.</p>
<p>It would take time and practice, and Frank could definitely live with that.</p>
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